Child Abuse and Neglect

Today, I’d like to get into something deeper, something that affects so many people, but wasn’t talked about back then. I’m referring to abuse.

My mother was mean. Nothing I did ever pleased her, no matter how hard I tried. Instead I was belittled and I wasn’t allowed to do much that I wanted to. It was always what she wanted, whether it was the dishes, or the one that really got to me was cleaning off the kitchen. For about 3-4 weeks, things started covering the kitchen counter.

Now this counter was longer than the average kitchen counter. My dad built the cabinets and counter when he rehabbed the kitchen. This counter had to be about 10 feet long. After 3 or 4 weeks, things were piling up pretty high. There wasn’t an empty space in sight. It contained all kinds of things that a child didn’t know what to do with.

Every 5 minutes I’d go to her in the other room and ask, “Where do you want this?” or “Where does this go?” There wasn’t any other place to put all this stuff, most of which should have just gone into the trash. That would be an agonizing period of time for me.

Every time I asked her about something, she’d get mad at me. I would get yelled at, then the belt might come out. This was a combination of physical and emotional abuse. This is just one example. There are many, many more.